It's hard to believe how quickly and thoroughly the "Information
Superhighway" and the World-Wide-Web have become integrated
into the daily lives of the general public. A decade ago, few
people outside of universities and the information technology
industry had even heard of the Internet, but today people depend
on it for everything from news, weather, and entertainment to
doing their homework, filing their tax returns, and buying the
basic necessities of life.

Depending on anything to that extent is dangerous, and the
failure or collapse of the Internet and the World Wide Web
would be catastrophic for the entire civilized world.

Couldn't happen, you say? Think I'm just another fearmongering
nutcase net-kook? Well, before you click that [back] button and revel
in your false sense of security, take a look at this graph:

If that's not enough to convince you by itself, let me point
out that it's a graph of the increasing volume of traffic on
the internet, now dominated almost entirely by the transmission
of web-based information.

So far, technological advances have been able to keep pace
with this ever-increasing need for information flow. But this
could change--even as we speak, there's another, as yet
unexplained fellow-traveller that's taking up an ever greater
proportion of this bandwidth. Its purpose remains unknown,
but it does not appear to be of human origin and its content
is not information that is of use to or meaningful to humans.

And yet, every single day, it devours an even larger share of
the total internet bandwidth.

As recently as ten years ago, no reported observances of
the strange code "&nbsp;" appeared in the traffic on the
"information superhighway." Today it is already taking up
a substantial portion of the total internet bandwidth and it
appears to propagate by "infecting" webpages in a virus-like
or cancer-like manner, spreading throughout its victim,
crowding out or replacing the readable text content that had
originally occupied the formerly healthy page.

In the most advanced cases, infected pages may have had nearly
all their text replaced by the "&nbsp;" virus, leaving nothing
but a vestigial "under construction" or "coming soon" sign.

A survey of randomly selected webpages showed that
those infected by the virus typically had 10% to 30%
of their total bytes consisting of multiple "&nbsp;" tags.
Web browsers will not normally display these tags, so
when an unsuspecting reader loads up an infected page,
he or she will probably notice nothing more than what
appears to be a slower internet connection--hardly an
unusual experience in this day and age.

"&nbsp;"'s exact method for infecting pages has not yet
been discovered. Whether it is transmitted through a
network connection, between pages sharing the same
host, or through unprotected cybersex is uncertain.
What is certain is that it is spreading rapidly throughout
the World Wide Web. If current trends continue
(see graph below), within six years, over 99% of network
traffic will consist entirely of "&nbsp;"s and surfers on
the information superhighway will find themselves waiting
as long for pages to load as real-life surfers have to
wait for a decent whitecap to come rolling up I-85.

X
X
X
xX
.XX
.xXXX
..xxXXXXXX
-----------------------------

The virus-like manner in which "&nbsp;"s replicate and
spread looks threatening enough, and for now they appear
to do nothing more than take up space on the information
superhighway while they freely use our precious communications
infrastructure to travel around the world for their own, as
yet unknown, ends.

Can we really count on them always remaining silent, though?
As described above, they typically make up 10-30% of infected
pages; that means that regardless of how widespread they may
be, they're still in the minority. What happens when they
become the majority? Will they then "activate" like a human
virus that first establishes a foothold in its victim and only
then starts causing symptoms? Could "&nbsp;" turn out to be
ebola for computers?

What is the real purpose behind this "&nbsp;" invasion?
We already know that it's dangerous, quite likely the
single greatest threat to our technological society.

Frighteningly, we simply don't know. Whether it's part of
some long-reaching terrorist scheme to disrupt global
communications, or the beginnings of an all-out invasion
by a hostile alien race, the odds are that by the time we
do figure it out, it will already be too late.

As a concerned citizen, what can you do to prevent the
destruction of the internet? Regularly check your own
webpages and those you visit to see if they've become
infected; most browsers include a "view source" option
that lets you do this easily.

Write letters to your local paper and your congressman
demanding that this crisis be dealt with immediately, and
watch carefully for any changes in your computer's operation
and performance that might be caused by "&nbsp;" infection.
Check the computers of family members and friends to make
sure that they have not become unwitting dupes of the "&nbsp;"
invasion. If you observe any signs that they might be under
"&nbsp;" control, take no chances; get to a phone as quickly
as possible without arousing their suspicions and report them
and their computers to the authorties immediately.

"&nbsp;"'s ever-tightening grip on our precious information
superhighway means that immediate action is vital. It is
only by working together to fight this menace that we have
any hope of saving our technological way of life.

UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this
IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.